


The Little Road to Pelagiad

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: In which Lunette escorts Itermerel to Pelagiad, and along the way meets a kagouti, and also a certain dashing highwayman.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Little Road to Pelagiad

If Lunette had thought that Itermerel might have run out of words by now, then she had been quite drastically mistaken. Perhaps he had spent the several hours aboard the silt strider talking – perhaps he had bored the caravaner (and Lunette, privately) half to death – but he had only scratched the surface of his research, and every related topic which he thought of in the narration, and when they disembarked he redoubled his efforts.

Her task had been to escort him to Pelagiad; she had not realised that the difficult part would be listening to him. If she was to earn her copy of his notes, then she could not falter in her imitated interest: and to be perfectly frank, she was wearing more than a little thin. It was not that she was not interested in magical scholarship, or in learning: it was that in spite of his eagerness, he was quite the least inspiring of speakers she had ever had the misfortune to encounter. His claim to be a lecturer at the Arcane University seemed to her dubious, if only because she would have immediately dismissed anyone who was unaware of the concept of conciseness.

But she had just enough charm in her to suffer him, and so let him speak, let him wax lyrical upon the movement of daedrons in Oblivion streams. – At points she thought she understood, and then she realised that she yet had no idea what a daedron was, or an Oblivion stream. It didn’t feel like it especially mattered. – And they might have continued on to Pelegiad in much the same manner, but for the noise which emerged from a comberry bush, followed by the creature which had made it.

Oh! – every time Lunette thought she had grown used to the bizarrity of Morrowind’s fauna, it once again surprised her. – This creature was bigger than her, almost as tall as Itermerel; an ugly misshapen thing, walking upon two legs, with no other appendage particularly identifiable. – More significantly, it was angry, possessed two sharp horn-like things, and was headed straight for them.

Itermerel took a step back, and conjured the first sparks of a spell into his hands, hesitantly, for he had not actually often used magic in practice; but Lunette was determined that he stay out of the way: she drew her shortsword, and went for the creature.

A flurry, of dodging those well-aimed horns, sidestepping its movements – its bipedalism gave it a striking dexterity – trying to find where its vitals might lie, that she not waste her blows. She led it upon a merry dance, up and down the path, away from the naive Itermerel (who looked as if he was trying to remember some passage from a book on Destruction); then, when she had baffled it enough, she fell upon it shouting, sank her sword into what seemed to be its belly, and retreated adroitly when it began to roar.

And when it seemed as if it might come for her once more – a weakened, desperate final assault – she stabbed it again, definitively, and it fell down dead.

‘What in _Oblivion_ was that thing?’ cried Lunette.

‘I... was rather hoping _you_ might know,’ said Itermerel.

‘I am almost as new to Vvardenfell as you,’ said Lunette: ‘I have heard names, stories... I have not seen anything quite like whatever that was. – I might say it was an alit, or a kagouti. – I shall have to ask.’

She named it, from its bristling brown fur, and the fact that it stood upon two legs; what she had heard of alits and kagoutis was not reassuring, but she had also been told that they were rare, and did not venture close to the roads. – Just her luck, then, to get one when she had to protect someone, someone who had never fought in his life, and who in taking up his fighting stance had nearly tripped over his robes. – Thank the gods they were nearly at Pelegiad!

‘Well!’ said Itermerel, ‘I shall have to hope that I do not encounter such a thing again – that I shall have an escort back from Pelagiad, when I leave.’

Lunette wiped the blood from her sword upon the thing’s fur, wondered if any part of the animal had any value. – She decided against dissecting it, with Itermerel’s eyes upon her: it might not make the best impression. – And so she stood, sheathed her sword, and invited him to continue.

‘Where did you learn to fight?’ asked Itermerel: ‘or hunt, if that is what you were doing.’

‘I had a good mentor, back in Cyrodiil...’

It was not a lie: the streets and the Thieves’ Guild had taught her as well as any mentor, though they were not the sort of teacher one names in salubrious company.

‘Well, I am glad to have you along to protect me. – Where were we? – I believe I was postulating the effect on magicka reserves exacted by the proximity to a daedron source.’

_I believe you were making a mouthful of something which perhaps makes sense, under all that flourish,_ thought Lunette, and put on her best interested face.

They could see Pelagiad over the hills, and the road had begun to make its lazy way in the direction of the town, when they were once more interrupted – not by a kagouti, or indeed any manner of creature, but by a figure, which Lunette perceived in the corner of her eye, and to her shame did not see fast enough to get out her dagger, before his was at her throat.

‘Ah!’ said he, retreating but moments later, and coming to stand before her: ‘I had not seen that you were a lady so fair...’

‘I am warning you, thief –’ said Itermerel suddenly, gesturing with a sparking hand at the highwayman.

For he was a highwayman, – unmasked, a brazen one, to be sure, but a highwayman nonetheless. And his attempt to rob the pair blind had come to a surprising halt, when the man saw that Lunette was of all things a woman (perhaps also seeing the still-bloodied shortsword at her belt), and directed his gaze at her, even as he directed his dagger at the startled Itermerel.

‘Attempt anything, wizard,’ said the highwayman, ‘and I shall rescind my lenience.’

‘Lenience?’ said Lunette.

‘Yes, lenience,’ the man pursued: ‘for normally I demand a sum of money from my targets – or else their life – and yet –’

‘Well?’ demanded Lunette, quite irked by the way in which he beheld her, all the charm of a gentleman and all the trickery of a conman. – It takes one to know one, after all.

‘Well, I could not demand either from such a – from a woman of such grace and charm as you. Dear lady, I ask for nothing but – a simple kiss.’

If he had hoped she would not retreat her shortsword, then he had almost made a fatal error, for Lunette’s first reaction was to teach him quite the lesson; but she restrained herself at once, and her hands scarcely moved. Her mouth alone twitched, she clasped her hands behind her back.

‘Sir, I am not sure –’

‘That is all I desire,’ said he: ‘will you not grant me so simple a boon? – Please, dear lady: I am the thief, but you have stolen my heart –’

‘Will it shut you up, at least?’ said Lunette, and stepped forth.

It was not an unpleasant kiss; he did not force himself upon her, as she might have expected, rather she had the upper hand. – It occurred to her halfway, that though he was had been quite comically theatrical about it, he may not have been lying about his stolen heart. – And that pleased Lunette, that she had such power over him: pleased her, that she put more effort into the kiss, as if to convince him that she returned his affections, to make him melt beneath her...

She succeeded, because she had succeeded before, because she had all the charm of any Imperial; that when she broke from him, he looked besotted beyond reason, and took more than a moment to regain his composure, and that absurd theatre.

‘Your kiss, dear lady...’ he ventured: ‘is worth more gold than in any treasury in Morrowind. I... take my lodging at the Halfway Tavern, in Pelagiad; perhaps you will visit me, some time? – Until then, I remain faithfully yours, your Nels Llendo.’

He bowed, an attempt at the Cyrodiilic style; then, his eyes yet half upon Lunette, he took his leave and disappeared over the hill. 

At which Lunette looked back at Itermerel, who looked nothing if not disapproving, and who said:

‘Please tell me you are not going to... _bed_ that awful fellow...’

Lunette took it into more consideration than he might have wanted. ‘Hmm. I don’t think he’s worth it. I already have all that I want from him.’

‘You don't mean to say you _enjoyed_ that kiss?’

‘I don’t mean the kiss...’

She had enjoyed the kiss, in a sideways sort of fashion, in the satisfaction of conquest which it had given her: but that was not the point. The point was that she had perceived his utter disregard for his surroundings, as he had lost himself in the kiss, and that –

Lunette grinned, and took her hand from behind her back, and showed Itermerel a hefty purse of coins, and a small key.

‘He will have a job getting back into his room without this,’ she said.

‘You pickpocketed him!’

‘And why not?’

‘Lunette, it must be said, you surprise me at every turn –’

‘I shall take that as a compliment. – We are nearly at Pelegiad, I do believe.’

‘And I think I was telling you about magicka fluctuation in the presence of daedrons –’

And she would suffer it; they had not far now to go. Oh! quite a journey it had been; quite a journey to think upon, to overwhelm the monotonous tone of Itermerel’s narration; what adventure they had found, upon the little road to Pelagiad...


End file.
